


Am I not your lover?

by RhinoHill



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Poetry, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-12 19:22:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29639451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RhinoHill/pseuds/RhinoHill
Summary: Am I not your lover?Your eyes have been the searchlight that walked me out of fear.Your smile will always be my anchor.SoIs this not love?And if it is, thenAm I not your lover?
Relationships: Samantha "Sam" Carter/Jack O'Neill
Comments: 112
Kudos: 81





	1. The notebook

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Caro_the_Poet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caro_the_Poet/gifts).



*Jack*

48 hours in quarantine is a long time when you’re alone and itchy as fuck.

With nothing to distract you, not even a report to write.

Just the boils on your skin slowly erupting new boils.

And nowhere to go.

Because, you know. Quarantine.

It’s what drives me to the desperate act of refolding the clothes the med team chucked into my quartersafter me with a mumbled apology about the assless medical gown they’d shoved me into when we lurched back through the gate, blistered and screaming.

Well, blistered, all of us. Screaming, mostly Daniel.

At least that thought makes me smirk as I yank another piece of clothing from the pile in search of something soft and ass-covering to wear.

That’s when your notebook tumbles to the floor at my feet.

Pale blue — faded, probably, from years of handling. A palm-sized, soft-covered notebook, the kind that costs only cents. And I didn’t see it often, but over thepast three years or so, I’ve noticed you writing in it on long, cool evenings, on calm worlds, during long watches.

I never asked.

You never volunteered.

I always assumed it contained inspiration for one of the thirteen peer-reviewed journal articles you’ve published, that I’ve read and marvelled at, and always pretended not to understand so you could explain it to me again.

A fever-dream memory floats back to me as I hold up the jacket that’s clearly too small to be mine. A memory of you stripping off my jacket and covering me with yours, when I first ran out of the grey-green fog, panting with pain. Before we realised we couldn’t outrun it.

Sure, I got the worst of it. But you took a bigger hit than you should have, because you covered me with your jacket and exposed your skin.

God, I hope you’re not as itchy as I am.

In the endless twilight of the SGC’s VIP quarters, I pace away the hours, your notebook in my hands. My skin too raw for sleep. My mind too hot for rest.

You took off your own jacket to cover me. Even as the fog closed in.

I respect your privacy as much as I respect your brain.

I hate myself for cracking open the faded blue cover, worn soft by months in the breast pocket of your jacket.

Yet I can’t stop my agitated hands.

The formulae you doodled will make me feel even more intellectually inferior, I'm certain. And besides, I won’t ever want to admit that I read this.

But 48 hours in quarantine is a long time when you’re alone and itchy as fuck.

_I was born the moon_

_I exist to reflect your light_

My breath catches.

Guiltily, I cast a look at the CCTV camera in the corner of my room, then look back down at the unexpected words in your hauntingly familiar script.

The page I randomly glanced at contains no science.

It holds words, gentle, loving, longing words, that carve your outline into my skin.

Gingerly, I ease my aching ass onto the cold concrete against the wall, directly under the camera — the one blind spot in the room.

My hands move slowly, finding the first page.

_Why do you always try to make me laugh?_

_Can’t you see that you are all I need_

_To smile?_

‘Hope is a thing with feathers’, Emily Dickenson wrote.

The feathers of my hope are all the colours of an acid trip.

Your words aren’t formulae.

They’re beauty.

I can’t stop reading.

I want to know the end.

 _Need_ to know.

Because we agreed … No. You suggested that we keep things locked in a room.

I’ve never known how much of that suggestion was truth, and how much was kindness.

And now you’re wearing another man’s ring.

After you showed it to me in its perfect velvet box, and I fumbled and failed to tell you that I would quit tomorrow if you so much as hinted that you still cared.

Quit, and spend my life breathing you in.

Only, I don’t do kindness.

I would rather die alone than have you be with me out of pity.

With shaking fingers, I page through your poetry.

There is never a name.

And that’s smart. Nobody to be tortured over.

Still.

It flutters uncertainty in my chest.

And mad, wild hope.

I first saw you with this notebook before you ever hummed in the elevator after meeting Pete.

And the last time I saw you writing in it, while on your quiet, boring watch, was two days ago; the night before the burning fog descended.

Clamping my teeth down on my bottom lip, I flip to the last page of writing. The page you wrote two nights ago.

_Am I not your lover?_

_I know your skin. Its steady warmth._

_I’ve held it in disguise_

_Cold with fear_

_Sticky-black with your blood, and with mine._

_I’ve memorised the map of scars that trace across your back -_

_The ones you hide from others but allow my fingers to feel_

_When I wake you from your nightmares,_

_When you wake me from mine_

_And I cling to you for redemption._

_Am I not your lover?_

_I’ve found refuge in the strength of your shoulders,_

_Buried my tears in the collar of your shirt,_

_And you’re borne them for me,_

_Given them safe burial in the softness of your care._

_Am I not your lover?_

_Your eyes have been the searchlight that walked me out of fear._

_Your smile will always be my anchor._

_So_

_Is this not love?_

_And if it is, then_

_Am I not your lover?_


	2. My sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A shadow with your shape falls across my open doorway.
> 
> I know it’s you from the way you knock, anyway, and then still turn my surname into a request for permission.
> 
> You’re my C.O. You, of all people, have the right to walk in. Yet you always wait for my yes.
> 
> \--oOo--

*Sam*

People would think it strange to hear that I welcomed the burning eruptions on my skin.

Pathological, even.

I couldn’t tell the med team that I longed for a physical pain that finally gave a voice to my feelings.

That every evening, when I got home and slipped on Pete’s ring, a leaf on my heart withered.

That every night, when I traced the moon’s arc across the sky while he slept in my bed, his ring clamped around my finger like a strait jacket and smothered my dreams.

I told myself I was simply finally growing up.

But when we were off-world, when Pete and his ring and my future were mere possibilities compared to the closeness of us, my dreams sprang back to technicolour life, beating against my eyelids, screaming to be heard. Fighting their way out of my fingers and onto the pages of the little, dime store notebook that I’ve promised myself a hundred times I’d set aside, and somehow still carry with me.

Carried with me.

The caustic fog that overcame us three days ago took care of that for me.

Thankfully.

Because I couldn’t stop the words that flooded out of me when I saw you looking at me in the fire’s dying light on our last night away. And anyone who reads what I wrote that night, would realise it's not a poem for my fiancé.

The med team dropped the clothes I was wearing when we stumbled back through the gate into my quarters in the SGC’s VIP suite, so that I could have something other than a medical gown to wear during our quarantine. But my jacket — the one I had covered you with to shield you from the full force of the chemical burn you faced head-on for us — was missing. It had obviously been destroyed, along with the notebook in its breast pocket, to eliminate the agent that still clung to us and could contaminate the entire base.

I was surprised they let the rest of our clothing survive, actually.

Janet would have been more careful. She would have burnt everything, not only your clothes and my jacket.

I can’t stop a wistful smile.

Janet, had she still been here to see the notebook, wouldn’t have needed to look beyond the first page to realise every word was about you.

With a shake of my head to dislodge the thought, I return to the mission report on my computer.

That’s when a shadow with your shape falls across my open doorway.

I know it’s you from the way you knock, anyway, and then still call my name in question.

You’re my C.O. You, of all people, have the right to walk in. Yet you always wait for my yes.

Despite the flutter in my chest, the tangle of hope and sadness, I smile when I hear you turning my surname into a request.

“Carter?”

And, only because I know you’ll wait for me, I push back my chair and walk to the edge of my desk before Isay yes. As if I would ever say noto you, Jack. As if I would ever say no.

“How’s the itchin’?” You ask, eyeing the angry welts that still stud my naked arms, my neck, my face.

I shrug, allowing my eyes to wander over your tanned skin instead of answering. You recovered better than I did.

Your voice pulls my gaze up to your mouth, before the olive-green parcel in your hands forces them back down. Your voice is gruffer than I’m used to. The way it is when you’re hiding emotion.

“Ya should’a kept this on. Though, I mean. Thank you.”

Realisation and terror rise like twin suns. Is the bundle of material you’re holding my jacket?

Does that mean …

Oh.

God.

Oh God.

Numbly, I reach for the neatly folded square you’re offering. Fumble when your fingers touch mine. It slips. Unravels. Spilling sleeves and hems.

A rectangle of faded blue slides out and thuds dully to the concrete floor.

Your eyes rise to mine in startled recognition.

Horror freezes my breath in my lungs.

My hand hovers in the air.

You’re the one who moves, jerking a thumb at the doorway gaping behind you.

“I’m, uh, gonna…”

You back away, following your pointing thumb.

Leaving me to stare, petrified, at the notebook they gave you by accident.

Next to it on the cold floor is a small, unfamiliar square of folded paper that fell out at the same time.

Because I can’t face my undoing yet, I pick it up first.

Blood thunders in my ears.

The room is loud and silent all at once.

I unfold the paper.

My hand rises to my mouth.

The writing on the note is yours.

_You are not my lover,_

_You are my sky._

_Your shoulders are my far horizon_

_Lazy arms flung wide to cradle my day._

_You are not my lover,_

_You are my dawn._

_Spilling light from your eyes and hope in your smile._

_Making me feel again._

_You are not my lover,_

_Because when a lover leaves, one misses them._

_But without you I can’t breathe_

_Won’t breathe_

_Don’t want to breathe._

_No_

_You are not my lover._

_You are my light._

_And how can I bottle the sun?_


	3. Thank you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You press the notebook into my hands and walk into the night, the flash of his ring on your finger the last thing I see as you pull the door closed between us.
> 
> \--oOo--

*Jack*

It was the right thing to do, no matter where it leads.

That is to say, it will lead nowhere.

When you gave me a chance, offered me hope I had no right to feel, I was too tongue-tied, too caught in consequences, to tell you that I love you.

It’s better this way.

You deserve more than an old, damaged heart.

And you have that endless resolve that I love so much.

You’ve chosen now. Chosen him.

I’m just glad I finally had a chance to tell you how I feel.

It’s almost better that my confession comes with no expectation.

I didn’t write what I did to try to win you over.

Only to let you know the truth of what you are to me.

The evening stretches its cloudy calm in front of me.

I pad around the house, tidying old newspapers, cleaning out the fireplace.

The television is too loud and beer tastes of nothing.

The rhythms of your words and mine twisting in the silence are all I need.

It’s peaceful.

I’m peaceful.

I finally found a way to tell you on a page what I’ve always been too overwhelmed to say.

Maybe there’s something to poetry after all.

Then I hear the knock on the door, and hell rises in my gut.

It’s you.

Holding your notebook like a torch, or a shield.

In your left hand.

On which his diamond ring still shines.

Your eyes are dark, searching mine, and I don’t know what you need to find, and God, I don’t know what else to give. An apology for reading your secret thoughts? For daring to believe they were meant for me?

_Fuck. What have I done?_

Wordless with dread, I step back, hold the door open for you.

No misunderstanding, no anger, can change the fact that I meant every word of what I wrote.

You’re in my soul.

You may as well be in my home.

My blood in my ears grows louder.

Moving slowly, careful not to shatter the silence, I twist away to shut the door behind us.

The instant I turn back to you, you step into my arms, your body pressed against my thundering heart, your arms tethers of strength around my back.

I cling to your warmth, your gentle breath, your solid presence in a fading world.

My head droops into the crook of your neck.

Your fingers glide into my hair.

And I come to rest.

You are my horizon. You contain my sky.

As gradually as the creeping dawn, my hands unclench, I soften from grasping to holding.

You fold closer, the curve of your back a sigh under my palm, the gentle peaks of your spine, the beauty of your hips the map to my new day.

I thrum with the shape of you.

Your neck curves, and your lips whisper against my throat.

“I must go.”

Night drops its cloak back over me with your words.

Yet, when you pull away, when you slide your hands down my back, an echo of the peace I found in your arms lingers in your gentle smile.

You press the notebook into my hands and walk into the night, the flash of his ring on your finger the last thing I see as you pull the door closed between us.

It’s better this way.

You deserve more than an old, damaged heart.

I’m just glad I finally had a chance to tell you how I feel.

I step onto my roof deck in the moonlight, page again through the poems that had the power to shift the world on its axis and bring it closer to where it needed to be.

I’ll cherish the unwritten pages as much as the ones you filled.

Maybe one day I’ll write again.

Two new words look up at me from the first blank page.

Words you speak so often with a smile and kindness, to me, to friends, to strangers, that I hear them all around me in the darkness.

Not poetry at all, they’d say.

Yet somehow

The only poem I need to hear.

_Thank you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for walking this road with Sam and Jack and me.
> 
> Please come back for the next chapter? There's more.  
> And the ending is filled with the happiness your friendship and kindness bring to my world.
> 
> Thank you all, for being who you are.  
> You bring the world closer to where it needs to be.  
> xo


	4. Safe passage home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I wish I could show you that your existence is all I need.
> 
> This is so much easier on paper.
> 
> God, I miss poetry.
> 
> \--oOo--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is for every single person who commented on chapter 3.
> 
> I didn't reply individually, because I don't know how to thank you for your beauty.  
> Except with bad jokes about peas.  
> And more writing.
> 
> You are my sun.  
> xo
> 
> \--oOo--

*Jack*

I lose the battle against my willpower halfway through lunch, when your seat remains empty.

“Carter not coming’?” I stab at a pea while I talk to avoid seeing Teal’c’s knowing eyebrow lift. The little green fucker just rolls away from my fork. Whoever looked at these on aplant and thought of shelling them and making people pick them off their plates individually, was a giant ass.

“She took her lunchbreak to go see Pete Shanahan,” he replies.

“Ah.”

It’s fine. Good even. Getting used to this is A Good Thing.

_Stab._

I mean. People nip off base at lunch all the time. For dentist appointments. To drop their children at swimming.

_Stab._

To see their partners.

Husbands-to-be.

_Stab. Stab. Stab._

Yet… I hold words in my breast pocket today. Words that prove you care. That end with _Thank You_.

That mean you’ll stay in my life.

I can learn to live with that.

I lift the loaded fork to my mouth.

“Whoever invented peas is a bigger ass than Ba’al,” I pronounce before my teeth tug the tiny pierced balls off the prongs.

Teal’c’s eyebrows knit together.

“There is a more efficient way to gather them on to a fork, O’Neill.”

With exaggerated care, he uses his knife to demonstrate herding a load of little green globes onto his fork.

I have to stifle a grin. Somewhere through that quantum mirror in the Area 51 high security storage room, there is a universe in which Teal’c is a butler who takes it upon himself to teach my kids better manners than their dad.

I wonder if our kids have your eyes.

Angrily, I dislodge the thought with another stab. Now is _not_ the time.

“Where’s the fun in that, T? You’re just making the fucker who invented them win,” I grumble.

Still, lunch is a hollow affair. There are two empty places at our table now. Yours, and Daniel’s.

I know you’re not dead. Neither of you are.

If anything, I got you back last night, with your arms around me and your fingers in my hair.

But sometimes it’s hard not to count the losses.

Maybe your empty seat is the reason I don’t pay attention on my drive home and find myself pulled up in your driveway instead of my own.

The moment I see movement through your kitchen window, I realise what a stupid move this was. After all you’ve done for me, how can I turn up here, on the very day you left work to go see him?

Fuck.

It’s too late. Your silhouette appears in your doorway and walks towards me.

I sit, frozen to the spot.

Just like last night, your eyes hold questions.

But your mouth is kind.

You lift your left hand and rest it on top of the open window.

“You okay, sir?”

I should be focusing on that question. Out of politeness, if nothing else.

But I can’t stop looking at your bare ring finger.

When the silence stretches longer than a breath, you speak.

“I couldn’t m-…”

The word, clamped down, drags my attention back to your face.

You’re chewing your lower lip. A sign of uncertainty you never show.

My eyes stay glued to you mouth as you sigh, then speak again.

“Have you eaten, Sir? I’m just making dinner. There’s enough for two.”

Damn those peas at lunch today., My thoughts have taken on their bodies, ricocheting round my skull in puffs of green. _You’re inviting me in. Which means you don’t mind me being here. You said there’s enough for two. Not three. You’re not wearing his ring. YOU’RE NOT WEARING HIS RING._

I swallow the nervousness threatening to smother me.

“Jack,” I croak.

Wait.

How did _I’m not your C.O. tonight, Sam, I’m the friend who loves you, who breathes easier when you smile,_ turn into ‘Jack’?

God, I miss poetry.

But your eyes soften into your smile.

“Well, are either of you hungry?” Is all you say.

And I find myself toeing off my shoes in your hallway and padding into your kitchen, trapped in the impossible promise of that word you didn’t say.

M-…

—oOo—

*Sam*

All day, my lips have tingled with the memory of your skin.

It took years for me to learn to love you, but only one day for me to find my way.

What stops me from telling you about Pete is not my conviction, not the certainty that sings in my veins. It’s how to let you know that you’ve already given me enough.

_You are not my lover,_

_You are my sky._

I thought I wanted a husband. But what I needed was a partner. Someone who understands my universe. Who cares about the same things I do. Who sees me, awkward, passionate, imperfect, and lets me be.

You do more than that.

You give me permission to shine.

I only wish I knew how to tell you how your love allowed me to let go of the illusion of Pete, to make space for true love, without sounding like a desperate girl who wants you to replace his ring with yours.

I wish I could show you that your existence is all I need.

This is so much easier on paper.

God, I miss poetry.

And now you’re here. You’re barefoot in my kitchen. And I haven’t planned a worthy meal. I was making a lonely sandwich when I heard your truck in the drive, when I saw you through the window.

“What can I do?” You ask, hovering near the fridge.

And I shrug, pull out two glasses and a bottle of red wine.

I was boiling the kettle for tea before you came.

“Pour us each a glass?” I ask.

I watch your hands working the corkscrew. I hover, ready to take the glass.

Or at least, I thought I was.

Because when you hand it to me and our fingers meet around the glass, unguarded words tumble free.

“I couldn’t marry him, because I’m in love with you.”

I suck in a breath at my own admission.

“I, I just don’t want you feel. I mean … I mean. Being able to tell you is enough. The world needs you to lead the SGC. I … Being able to tell you is enough.”

It all comes out wrong, Sounds needy, not grateful.

Blood rushes to my face as you tug the stem of the wineglass out of my fingers, set it on the counter.

“Sam," you say.

I was wrong.

I was wrong to think all I needed was your friendship.

The moment your fingertips brush my jaw, the second your mouth finds mine, I lose everything I thought I knew, and all that is left of the world is you.

Your lips soft and knowing.

Your kiss my safe passage home.


End file.
